American Red Cross Waits for Request for Help From Japanese Counterpart

American Red Cross chapters are opening shelters and feeding sites for people in Hawaii and on the West Coast who have evacuated coastal areas because of the threat of tsunamis posed by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan.

But for now, the organization is waiting for a request from the Japanese Red Cross before it starts actively fund raising or sending relief supplies to aid earthquake survivors in that nation.

Waiting for a request from the national Red Cross organization in a country where a disaster has taken place is standard protocol, says Wendy Harman, the Washington charity’s director of social media.

Last year’s earthquake in Haiti was an exception, she says. Because the organization knew Haiti’s Red Cross didn’t have the resources to handle the disaster alone, the American Red Cross responded even before it received a formal request.

Text Messages

Very early Friday morning, a spontaneous call to donate to the American Red Cross via text message started on Twitter and is now one of the most popular messages on the online service.

Although the American Red Cross is not actively raising money for the disaster yet, it is setting up a fund for those donations.

Says Ms. Harman, “We will honor the donor intent, as clearly people texting today intend to support Japan and the tsunami-affected areas.”